Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Why staying up late is a bad thing

Not having to get up and go to work has been wreaking havoc on my schedule. For the most part I’ve been trying to maintain some semblance of a routine. Y’know going to the gym in the morning, working on my job search by day, leisure pursuits in the evening.

That worked fine back in April when I was doing outplacement seminars. In May the reality of my split-up with my ex and the need to move out of our house took over the job search and any leisure pursuits. I packed and organized my way through May. I stopped going to the gym for a week or so around Memorial Weekend when packing, lifting and moving boxes up and down stairs replaced my regular exercise routines. Once I packed up 98% of my stuff in those storage boxes they deliver to your house and take away when you’re done, I was free to haul the remaining 2% of my critical possessions to my new house-sitting job (which conveniently freed me from having to find and pay for a new apartment) and clean the old house.

But now it’s June. Sure there was a week of settling in and getting my affairs in order (That is such a posh little phrase don’t you think? Much better than getting my act together or other organizational phrases.) but that’s all over now.

I’ve been going to the gym again and eating properly now that I have a place with a stocked kitchen. But the routine is a little off. My friend Dorian calls from time to time and we go for walks around the area. Not little leisurely strolls where window shopping can be done, but arm-pumping aerobic walks that get your heart pumping. But I like going to the gym in the morning because it reminds me of the last daily routine that worked for me before my life fell apart. That and the fact that I hate exercising in a hot gym and it gets hot in the afternoon when the fog burns off and the hot almost-summer sun starts warming up my gym. I keep all my good hair and body products at the gym as a reward, so I am always happy to leave clean and fresh ready to take on the day. But things get a little fuzzy after that.

I need to keep a little flexibility to have networking meetings or perchance an interview. Then I find myself working later into the evening doing research or searching job boards to see who is hiring and which recruiters seem to be getting jobs to fill.

One such evening, I was downstairs in the den watching TV. Granted it was on mostly for background noise, but before I knew it the movie I was watching over and some program came on. It was an infomercial pretending to be an actual show. As if we’d be fooled into thinking that it was anything but a 30 minute commercial. I was still engaged with my online pursuits, so I left it on and I’ll admit that I’ve a soft spot for these things. I’ve bought mops and exercise equipment that seemed to fill a void I hadn’t known existed until these nice actors pointed it out to me at 3am in the morning.

However, this morning I wasn’t going to be swayed. The show was a make-over format where a bunch of ‘friends’ sit down and talk about how they are aging and how they wish they could afford to have some “work” done. The older and wiser friend shares a secret and next thing you know they are putting bits of medical-grade scotch tape on their faces to give themselves quickie face lifts. I was howling at the absurdity of it and disappointed that the breast lifts weren’t being done with live models but with TV graphics.But I knew that there were good reasons why normal people were asleep at this time. Hell, I should be asleep at this time even if I only aspire to normalcy these days!

So you’ll be happy to know that I did take the cue and turned off the television and went to bed, safe in the knowledge that some day I would meet some woman with alert eyes, a firm chin and perky breasts all being held up with invisible pieces of plastic tape. It also reminds me that I need to get a life and quickly!